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 Sep 2020 Josephine Wilea
Jackal
It feels like a [monster? slime? creature?]
T H I N G
just clawing away at me.
It overwhelms, and screams, and rips and shreds at my insides,
begging me to take away the parts that aren’t me
that somehow managed to stick on my body anyways.
Body?
Corpse?
Husk.
Shell.
I am stuck in a shell
that i am not supposed to be in,
and i cannot get out no matter how much i  try
to
kick and
flail,
escape attempts are futile until i turn 18.
Hormones are raging at the wrong levels,
and my voice is not my own.
My body does not look how it is supposed to,
like someone has put the head of a ken doll on a barbie’s body.
I am a massacred mr(?) potato head
with mrs. potato head's body parts
shoved in all the wrong places.
It is so painful
to sit in the shower
and cry over the body that is not mine.
And you still believe
that I am your
little “girl”?
 Aug 2020 Josephine Wilea
Alice
so badly I wish to be poetic
I drink my tea in the moonlight
take evening strolls in the rain

I bring a tattered notepad with me
to the café
to the museums
I choose my words so carefully

But I'm sitting alone,
at three in the morning
writing this "poem"

and I don't feel poetic at all
it all feels like a lie
 Jul 2020 Josephine Wilea
Myrrdin
How do you tell someone
You'd rather sink to the bottom
Than get in their boat
 Jun 2020 Josephine Wilea
Myrrdin
...and as you fall in love with yourself,
You might lose your love for him
Do not apologize,
You deserved your own love more than he did.
 Jun 2020 Josephine Wilea
Myrrdin
You never liked the taste of coffee,
Until you tasted it in my mouth,
Who do you drink it with now?
there’s an open
wound on main street
and i wish people would
stop asking about it
because every question pulls
the hole a little wider

something was always
just a little bit
wrong

a constant drip
in the fridge

a fruit fly trapped
in the bake case

missing corners
of floor tiles

pictures hanging
slightly crooked

one foot of a table
unscrewed to a wobble

the rattle
of the heater

smiles from those
i couldn’t trust

a tiny pinprick of
stress behind my eyes

every year was
the year that would
make it or break it

so nobody was
surprised
except those who
couldn’t see the scuffs

last year
things were supposed
to be so good
everyone talking
mad **** about their
incredible ideas

i had a few
ideas of my own
nobody ever had to
teach me how to
dream big
overachieve
overexert myself
and fall hard

the quiche crusts stuck
to the bottoms of pans

and there was no way to
get the slice out
without the whole entire
thing falling apart

i might have been
the first slice to go

but at least i got
out of there

before the hand that
pulled me out
was the hand that
dropped the pan

a glass pie plate
shattered and
the way things were
supposed to be suddenly

over
just
like
that

and i’m still
reeling
on the sidewalk
staring at the
empty shell of
something i once loved

big hopes
big dreams
big plans
small town
too small to
hold them all

every piece of my
future points
backwards
arms of a clock
working their way
into the past

it’s not in how
the damage was done
but in how you
heal from it

there’s an
open wound on
main street
maybe if we gave
south street stitches
we could pull it closed

but still i question
my existence as if
scones and coffee
and thursday mornings
before sunup were
the only things that
gave me
stability

maybe
they were

maybe people
pull themselves into
an orbit around that
which keeps them grounded

an orbit of
routine and the
dissonance needed
to stir ice cubes
in a plastic cup
to create peace
in the moment
of chaos

or maybe
the one place
that always felt
like home to me
was just a cafe
on the four corners
and now there’s
an open wound
not so much
on main street
but the pocket of my
heart where hope lives
copyright 2/17/20 by b. e. mccomb
Morning frost
lays crystal sheets,
steaming in
the early heat.

Autumn breathing
steep release,
surrendering
last leafy green;
final piece
of creaking tree
won't let go
so easily.

Achieved by
a tease of
frigid degrees,
reason's razor
sharp, now cleaves
between stability
besieged by treason
and terminal
velocity agreed,
competing speed
descending free;
earthen dirt
eagerly pleas
and receives;
turbulently earning
unpredictability,
it careens.

A final sigh,
falling relief,
I hold my breath,
freeze expectantly;
winter seized
as seasons leave
seed buried
somewhere
six feet deep
beneath dry bones
and brittle debris,
lost in all
of eden's weeds,
covered in
a snowflake sea,
icy geometry impedes.

Heart, a beat,
syllable speaks,
rhythm repeats
infrequently;
silence broken
for a moment,
it meekly greets
and peaks,
exhausting extreme
expediently;
though gravity
its greedy thief,
time denies
my soul to keep;
not dying yet
in faded defeat,
mortality has
still not ceased;
just enough
life left to lead.

Still hope to be
and blessedly believe-
a flame to flicker
in the breeze
when you need
the light to carve
through dark to see,
if only ever our meeting
but fleeting and
happening briefly.

Dark circles
and a ******
of crows' feet creased,
show me deprived
of sleep, fatigued
on the eve of
dreams, leaping;
as the sun sets
in the west weeping,
reflects again,
blinding iris
rising east,
horizon breached
again eventually;
coronary arteries
won't concede
until this vessel
bleeds empty.
EDIT: I might be expressive but I'm not a very prideful person (probably to a fault) but I'm especially happy with how this one turned out (honestly I would even say I'm really proud). I can never tell if the rhyme/structure is too distracting for people because I read over it so much myself, but I'm really happy with it just for me.

EDIT 2: Sorry, I'm gonna use a sun, promise it's not vanity, my stuff just doesn't get much visibility on here (not that I care about my monkey brain hitting the dopamine button with internet points, it's just nice to be heard, otherwise why write, right?)...

I know it sounds weird but I feel like the voice I write with comes from outside of myself, like I'm compelled to say what comes out without consciously thinking about it so much... the method I use to write is unconventional... I'll start out with a word or turn of phrase in mind knowing what I want to express or show with the poem, then I'll find all the rhymes I can using words that generally fit, then I shape them into what I want to say.

I definitely don't believe 'it's my calling' or anything supernatural/religious, but it feels like it's the closest thing to channeling/tapping into some sort of spiritual essence/communion (even though I can't logically allow myself to believe in any sort of literal divine energy, that's just the closest I can equate)... and it feels like i write for the same reason the birds sing and the grass is green 🤷‍♂️ I know to anyone else it's just poetry (and any art is subjective, who cares about poetry in 2020?! 😆), I could never delude myself into thinking it's any more than it is even on a personal level (my mother is schizoafffective  based around religious delusions that developed from a personality disorder and it's genetic, ill likely always have particular barriers against it myself, unfortunately), nor is it any sort of mania... it's just certainly nice having that sort of outlet (I would even argue necessary to a degree) even if it doesn't amount to much.
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